Delhiwale: City by chandeliers

Chandeliers across Delhi evoke nostalgia and elegance, enhancing spaces from coffee houses to guest houses, each with a unique emotional ambiance.

A simplest chandelier can stir the myth of a gilded age. At United Coffee House in Connaught Place, the feeling holds. Two chandeliers hang from the ceiling. One long-ago morning, their clear reflections form flawlessly on the surface of a customer’s black Darjeeling tea, as if a miniature chandelier has been lowered into the cup. The illusion lasts until lifting the cup broke the tea’s still surface.

The reflection of the chandelier is spreading across the piano’s slanted lid. (Mayank Austen Soofi)

Here is a brief survey of some impressionistic chandeliers across the city.

At Samar Guest House in Old Delhi’s Urdu Bazar, the ground floor offers little: just a long, narrow staircase rising to the reception. Yet the road-facing staircase carries an unexpected dignity, conferred by a small chandelier suspended above it, casting a steady light. The glow is curiously melancholic, as if a kind of soft weeping has clung to wherever the light is falling. The passerby, accidentally spotting it from outside, is momentarily drenched in a feeling of regret and loss.

During the just-concluded month of Ramzan, a modest chandelier had been hanging over Chitli Qabar Chowk as part of the wider street decoration. It remained lit through the night. By day, though unlit, the chandelier lent the place a quiet grace, redeeming it of its disconcerting chaos.

At Madras Coffee House in Shivaji Stadium, a chandelier hangs at the centre of the ceiling above a table. This evening, its glare is resting upon a silent couple. The sight recalls lines from a poem by Constantine P. Cavafy:

In the small room, radiantly litby the chandelier’s hot fire,no ordinary light breaks out.Not for timid bodiesthe lust of this heat.

In North Delhi’s Maidens Hotel, three chandeliers hang in a row in the lobby, but are multiplied many times over by wall mirrors. The one nearest the coffee shop is suspended above a sweeping staircase. The setting is melodramatic; you imagine a distraught Anna Karenina running down the staircase at any moment, her many reflections forming on the glass crystals of the chandelier.

At Kwality, chandeliers cover the restaurant ceiling. One stands above the piano. This evening, the pianist, Mister Tony, is playing a tune from the film song Rahe na rahe hum. The reflection of the chandelier is spreading across the piano’s slanted lid. The sight is arresting (see photo).